Data Insight: After a decade… | Our World in Data Summary

1. Key Themes

Industrial policy can rapidly reshape global commodity markets

Indonesia's export ban transformed it from a raw nickel miner into the dominant processor in less than a decade. "This changed around a decade ago, when the government banned the export of raw nickel, forcing companies to process it domestically." The results were dramatic: "Indonesia's production increased more than 60-fold, going from around 22,000 tonnes in 2014 to over 1.4 million tonnes in 2023."

Resource nationalism and value-chain capture

Indonesia moved from exporting a cheap raw commodity to capturing the higher-value processing step domestically, shifting its share of global output from negligible to dominant. "The country went from producing 1% of the world's total processed nickel to 41% in that period."

Chinese capital is embedded in critical mineral supply chains, even in "onshored" markets

Despite Indonesia's domestic processing mandate, much of the actual investment and ownership behind this growth is Chinese, complicating narratives about supply chain diversification away from China. "But much of that growth involved Chinese capital. The International Energy Agency reports that Chinese companies now own the vast majority of Indonesia's nickel refining assets."

2. Contrarian Perspectives

"Onshoring" doesn't necessarily mean de-risking from China

The conventional narrative around critical minerals is that moving processing out of China reduces geopolitical/supply-chain risk tied to Chinese dominance. This data suggests otherwise: Indonesia became the world's top processor, overtaking China itself, yet "Chinese companies now own the vast majority of Indonesia's nickel refining assets." The physical location of processing shifted, but ownership and control largely did not — an important nuance for investors or policymakers assuming geographic diversification equals strategic independence.

3. Companies Identified

No individual companies were named in the article; ownership was described only at the aggregate level ("Chinese companies own the vast majority of Indonesia's nickel refining assets").

4. People Identified

Esteban Ortiz-Ospina — Author/researcher at Our World in Data. Credited as the author of this data insight. "By Esteban Ortiz-Ospina"

5. Operating Insights

Export bans as a strategic lever for resource-rich nations: Countries holding key reserves of critical minerals (Indonesia has "the world's largest reserves" of nickel) can use export restrictions to force value-added investment domestically rather than exporting raw materials cheaply — a playbook other resource-rich nations may replicate for cobalt, lithium, copper, etc.
Watch ownership structure, not just geography, when assessing supply chain risk: For entrepreneurs and investors in battery, EV, or steel supply chains, tracking where processing happens is insufficient — tracking who owns and finances that processing capacity (per the IEA data on Chinese ownership) is the more predictive signal for geopolitical exposure.

6. Overlooked Insights

The 2021 inflection point: "In 2021, Indonesia overtook China to become the world's largest producer and is now far ahead." This specific timing — occurring mid-EV/battery demand boom — suggests Indonesia's rise was well-positioned to capture outsized value from the energy transition's demand curve, a timing detail with implications for battery material sourcing strategies going forward.